More scholarship and research stories:

Stamps and national identity

Harcourt Fuller (above) is a PhD
Research Student at the London School
of Economics. He is researching ways in which post-independence Ghana created its own identity, distinct from
its colonial past.

The official iconography of postage stamps
and currency have provided a fruitful
avenue of research, showing ways in
which the emerging nation pictured itself.
He was guided to the material by the
Library’s specialist curators who have,
Harcourt says, ‘tremendous philatelic
and historical knowledge’.

Harcourt’s research demonstrates how
the scope of the Library’s Commonwealth
collection enables researchers to access
defining moments in the histories of
nations. Our resources allow important
stories from our collective past to be told.